A Touching Family Home Evening

This is me now! 37 weeks pregnant. I am feeling good besides the normal discomforts like not being able to breath, bend over, or get up by myself. All really bizarre feelings to me.

I guess we are excited about our soon to be "loud" little boy because this was the talk from conference we read for FHE tonight: I Love Loud Boys by Elder Yoon Hwan Choi
If you have not read it yet, you should! It is a great story and a very quick read. I am not sure why I was so touched by it. It has two very good lessons: Learn from church leaders and attend church meetings. The latter I have become very passionate about lately. Here is a quote from the talk:

President Ezra Taft Benson said in his speech entitled “To the ‘Youth of the Noble Birthright’ ”: “May I now direct your attention to the importance of attending all of your Church meetings. Faithful attendance at Church meetings brings blessings you can receive in no other way.”

I know that we are blessed through our attendance to as many church meetings as we can get to. It will be so much harder soon and I know I will be humbled to see how difficult church is with children, but I also know it is a commitment we will always keep b/c we need those blessings!

Remember Lot's Wife

I recently started studying the Old Testament. I have never had the guts to do this, believing I would not understand half of what is going on. That part has been true, but I picked up a commentary on it and that has helped tremendously. It also helps that I spend a lot of time cross-referencing and reading the Joseph Smith Translation. But I am really enjoying it and learning a lot. I guess I am prepping for next years Gospel Doctrine lessons!

My thought for the day:

Luke 17:31-33

31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.

32 Remember ^aLot’s wife.

33 Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall ^alose his life shall preserve it.

Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, He gave Lot and his family (relatives of Abraham) the opportunity to escape to the mountains and be saved. Unfortunately, Lot's wife "looked back" and she perished in the destruction. (Genesis 19) In the New Testament, Christ uses this example to talk about the end of our wicked world.

This scripture is very inspiring to me. To me it says: We have to lose our lives in the service of our Lord in order to preserve our lives. I know personally that this is the only way we can truly be happy in this life. If we put our relationship with Christ at the top of our priority list, everything else in our lives will fall into place.

Happy Birthday to me!

So, next week is my 24th birthday! I am really excited because I just bought my present...a ticket to see Imogen Heap in Salt Lake City. It will be a very different and interesting concert I am sure. It is bitter sweet however, because I will be going with our friends Matt and Ivy, who are so awesome to let me tag along, but Ryan will be staying home. I am feeling guilty about this but I will only be gone for one night. We are leaving on Thursday morning and returning Friday evening so pretty much just while Ryan is at work. I am grateful though that he is willing to let me go have fun without him. As much as I love having time at home to get things done, I am also in desperate need for something fun to look forward too. This is it! I am sure it will help me feel very rejuvenated and ready to wait only 4 more weeks for our little boy to arrive. I guess the only thing that can stop me now is labor...

My Baby Shower

Thanks to three very wonderful friends of mine, as well as all those that attended, I had a great baby shower last Thursday. I had so much fun and truly felt loved by my closest friends. The only thing missing were my family members scattered throughout the country. I missed you all! Here are some pics:

This one is my favorite! It is all of the women at my shower that are expecting in order of their due dates! So 7 out of 15 of people at my shower are preggars! Crazy but so much fun.
This is one of my professors from college. I love her tons and was so happy that she came. Among the games were bottle chugging apple juice, Celebrity baby name match, and my favorite was Jackie's List. A totally made up game for me! Six items on my registry were found on Craigslist. We then had to figure out what the retail price was, the Craigslist price, and what I would offer for it...since we rarely pay exactly what people are asking.


Another game was that people had to bend over with their head between their legs and draw a picture of what my baby was going to look like with their left hand. Then, the comments were recorded and that is what I am going to say when I am in labor! Here is a list of a few:

• "Mine's horrible"
• "Mine looks like a man...a man with a crew cut"
• "I'm out of breath...whew!"
• "Its really hard to resist the urge..."
• "Its left foot is bigger"
• "This kind of feels good...a good stretch"
  
• "Mine doesn't look human"
• "This is hard"

We will see how many of these are accurate in 49 days-ish!

Among the wonderful gifts I received were some really cute outfits, a crocheted blanket, a fleece blanket, a boppy pillow, and many many diapers! Thank you everyone that came!

A New Indulgence

For those of you who know me well, you know I have many indulgences...mostly sweets and chocolate! But being sick this week has introduced me to a new one...



Don't worry! I am not getting my birthing education from this show, but it is very fun to watch! And they play so many episodes. I think I am just enjoying looking forward to my own baby story. It is coming so fast. I am driving Ry crazy by wanting to get everything ready! Isn't that normal...I mean we are basically having the baby tomorrow right so the fact that I don't have diapers, a changing pad, a boppy pillow cannot be good! Thank you TLC for tugging at my heartstrings!

A New Life

My schedule has changed dramatically in the last couple of months and I am starting to really enjoy it! This might bore you but here is a look at my week:

Monday- Cleaning Day

• Spend 1 hour each on downstairs and upstairs. This includes the bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming,mopping and changing sheets. This is my weekly home blessing hour for those of you who are FlyLady fans.
• Grocery store every two weeks or when needed.
• Getting together with friends to watch Project Runway while Ryan plays basketball at night!
  

Tuesday- Temple Day

• Go to temple
• Rest of day is open to whatever needed

Wednesday

• Hang out day with moms and other sisters from the Ward. This has been a key component to my happiness. Even though I don't have a kid yet, I love getting together with other sisters who have time to hang out. We usually meet at the park or something. So far it has been a great time for moms-to-be to ask questions to the experts. I look forward to this every week and am so happy to have such great friends.
• The afternoon is usually reserved for Relief Society meetings and visits.

Thursday and Friday

• Do whatever I was supposed to do before and didn't and usually meetings or hanging out...whatever I plan. If I am lucky, I get to have lunch with my hubby one of these days! Those are my favorites.

Everyday

• The thing that makes life so much better is the time I take in the morning for a
  'morning devotional.' It includes scripture study always, and then different things each day: sometimes I watch a broadcast, write in my journal, read the Ensign, or whatever. And always a prayer. This makes everything in my day better.
• A trip to the gym is the goal. It hasn't been working out lately. But I have also been working evenings and that is almost over! The gym will be even more accessible.
  

I really have been SO busy! But it has been really fun. At first it was hard; I was cleaning way more than necessary. For those of you who may be envious of the time I have now, I am enjoying it while it lasts. I only have two more months!

Bigger and Bigger we get

It has been a while since I posted anything. Just wanted to show my belly. We are now at 29 weeks. Time is moving so fast.
Sorry about the ugly grill in the background!